The Speaker, John Bercow, has always prided himself on assiduously applying the rules of the House. He’s morally and politically corrupt, however he’s always been a rules man. But no longer.

Today he tore up the rules in the service of thwarting the sovereign will of the people. He balked at the counsel of House clerks who told him he was wrong, and he admitted in the House that he gave no thought to the consequences. One consequence we already know, and it’s that when trust has gone it can never be restored. Remainers tell us that we must not be angry, that we must hold our grace while we disagree (and the Establishment effectively tells us that democracy is good only when it goes their way). I say bollocks to that. A far greater man than any of them saw through that ruse –

In short, the theory that we must not be angry is the very charter of escape for all evil-doers who are strong enough to awaken anger.

– G.K. Chesterton: Daily News, August 8, 1908

We rarely do overt displays of anger in this country. It’s not the Saxon temperament. But out here, under the surface, we’re boiling. One day Bercow and his treacherous allies will find their parliament surrounded by pitchforks, and they’ll have brought it on themselves. Amid the political squalor, the rules of Parliament were the one constant path. But they’ve torn up the rules because they were inconvenient. So they cannot now call on rules.

119 Responses to “REMAINERS WILL STOP AT NOTHING”

What will be deeply interesting will be the future impact of this decision (Pete’s call to terrorism aside).

The traditional belief is that business motions are the sole purview of the government – and can only be tabled by Ministers and can only be amended at the request of Ministers. It is one of the major avenues for executive control of the legislature – the government decides what the Commons actually talks about on any given day.

I don’t know what would be more controversial.

A) Bercow has made a one time decision to allow the spiking of the Government’s Brexit plans – a situation that is simply nothing more than the Speaker of the House riding a horse and carriage through the rule book in order for the House to come to policy decision that he supports.

or

B) Bercow has issued a new precedent. That business motions are now the purview of the whole House and not the government, thus shifting – massively – the power of the Commons away from the government and towards the backbenchers.

Now Bercow has for years tried to shift power away from government to the backbenchers (much to the opposition of the Tories – as they have been in government for most of that time). This would be an unprecedented shift in power, and one, in my opinion, that would not be in the interest of good government.

In order to have successful government the government must be able to govern, and the opposition must be able to oppose. If the government is too strong – and is able to ride roughshod over any opposition, even reasonable opposition – then that is a recipe for bad government. If the government is too weak – and is unable to get even the reasonable parts of its agenda through Parliament – then that is a recipe for bad government.

Bercow has either politicsed the Speaker in a manner unheard of in modern British history, or his has torn up the very fabric that allows for successful parliamentary government in the UK.

One consequence we already know, and it’s that when trust has gone it can never be restored

Indeed Pete. On the matter of trust, as I commented just last night / earlier today:

Paul McMahon, on January 8th, 2019 at 10:29 PM Said:

“In-or-out was on the ballot paper. We voted out. That was the mandate and the instruction. Not one person voted for a deal”

One lie involves the PM in particular. He has stopped talking about “the EU”. He always talks now of “leaving the Single Market”. It’s not only a lie, but a psychological trick, however you can understand why the Remain camp don’t want voters hearing “ee-you” all the time. But it’s a lie because the EU and the Single Market are two separate and distinct entities […]

The Single Market is the EEA, the European Economic Area. No-one is proposing to leave it, no-one is campaigning to leave it, and the UK will not leave it. The referendum is about whether or not the UK will remain in the EU. The question has nothing to do with the Single Market

Who said that?

[…]

Paul McMahon, on January 9th, 2019 at 8:34 AM Said:

Pete,

The quote I use at 10.29 above are comments from yourself from the 20th of June 2016. They mean one of three things:

– You were lying

– You didn’t understand the full import of the referendum question

– Someone lied to you about the connotations of Brexit and you believed them

Now, each of these possibilities is a catch 22 for Brexiteers for if any of the deceit and / or chicanery within is then projected onto the Brexit electorate it means that any one of these options is in itself a good enough argument for another crack of the referendum whip.

The quote I use at 10.29 above are comments from yourself from the 20th of June 2016. They mean one of three things:

– You were lying

– You didn’t understand the full import of the referendum question

– Someone lied to you about the connotations of Brexit and you believed them

Now, each of these possibilities is a catch 22 for Brexiteers for if any of the deceit and / or chicanery within is then projected onto the Brexit electorate it means that any one of these options is in itself a good enough argument for another crack of the referendum whip.

You don’t like being caught on a hook you can’t wriggle off do you Pete?

Whether this is true or not (and I doubt if it is), you’re giving us yet another example of how worthless the British “constitution” is, just as nobody regularly proves how ineffectual the monarchy is as well as ATW’s leading traditionalist.

If a parliamentary chairman doesn’t like the rules, he can just tear them up.

One thing Pete got definitely wrong is the claim that the people are boiling with anger. The overwhelming mood of the British people over Brexit is bemusement bordering on boredom. For every rare angry pitchfork wielding protester there are a million others expressing droll tweets on their smartphones. No matter what happens with Brexit there will be no riots. Half a dozen burly Brexiteers in yellow jackets hassling Anna Soubry do not a peasants revolt make.

The political class and the establishment = The gifts that just keep giving. 🙂

Layer by layer the thin veneer of our so called democracy is being peeled away. It will show once and for all how things truly work and, that voting really does not change anything under the current system. And only the really thick, or those for ideological reason do not care, are turning a blind eye to all this.

President Vladimir Putin was right when he said after the referendum result something like; Now we will see if ‘they’ can live by the standard of democracy they set of others ?”

Layer by layer the thin veneer of our so called democracy is being peeled away. It will show once and for all how things truly work and, that voting really does not change anything under the current system. And only the really thick, or those for ideological reason do not care, are turning a blind eye to all this.

Precisely.

If voting ever changed anything, they would simply find a way to ban it.

Layer by layer the thin veneer of our so called democracy is being peeled away.

How so? Britain is a Parliamentary Democracy, government tried to do something and parliament didn’t like it so sought to change it. Brexiteers didn’t like it either so they pathetically attempted to bully Bercow over procedure as opposed to content.

It wasn’t a million years ago either that there was wailing and gnashing of teeth and the ‘thin veneer of our so called democracy’ was trying to be peeled away by those same Brexiteers when it was found by three High Court judges, (remember ‘enemies of the people?’), that enectment of Art 50 would have to go to a parliamentary vote and the Brexis thought that their sacred Brexit would be thwarted.

The choice to either Remain or Leave the EU was given to we the people to decide. Parliament clearly stated that it was our decision. They thought, wrongly, that we would simply vote to Remain.

After Cameron resigned and the present incumbent took office at Number 10, we had a General Election. The central part of both Conservative and Labour manifestos were Leaving the EU. That is why they got 80% of the votes and, the Lib Dems who wanted to Remain in the EU lost seats and vote share.

Parliament should be for Leave. It has been given a mandate twice over to do so. Now they wish to go back on this. This is not democracy, not even close. But as I said earlier, a lot of people are having that moment like, Neo did in the film Matrix.

“That is why they got 80% of the votes and, the Lib Dems who wanted to Remain in the EU lost seats and vote share.”

Actually the Liberal Democrats gain seats. They lost a small amount of vote share (7.4% down from 7.9% in 2015) but they gained seats (12 seats from 8). They lost 4 seats – 1 to Plaid, 1 to the Tories and 2 to Labour. They also gained 8 – 5 from the Tories, 3 from the SNP.

Additionally there is no evidence to suggest that Labour’s vote share came about because they backed leaving the European Union. Since then Labour have changed their official position to everything is on the table (including a second referendum), with the bulk of their MPs supporting a second referendum – and Labour’s standing in the polls has remained largely constant.

“This is not democracy, not even close.”

They are democratically elected. They are not delegates but representatives. And if you think they are doing a bad job don’t vote for MP at the next election.

And I think you’ll find it is you who is disagreeing with democracy (with regards to Paul, Noel and myself). For Paul, Noel and myself the only Brexit result that actually matters was 56% Remain – 44% Leave.

You wouldn’t know truth let alone something sacred if it booted you up the hole Pete:

The Single Market is the EEA, the European Economic Area. No-one is proposing to leave it, no-one is campaigning to leave it, and the UK will not leave it . The referendum is about whether or not the UK will remain in the EU. The question has nothing to do with the Single Market

Parliament clearly stated that it was our decision. They thought, wrongly, that we would simply vote to Remain.

Mark, I refer you to Pete’s comments and ask you to look at my 8.43 above. ‘Out’ clearly doesn’t mean ‘out’, and if so:

The quote I use at 10.29 above are comments from yourself from the 20th of June 2016. They mean one of three things:

– You were lying

– You didn’t understand the full import of the referendum question

– Someone lied to you about the connotations of Brexit and you believed them

Any one of these when extrapolated onto the wider electorate is sufficient in itself to warrant another lash.

“Maybe we should have done what Brussels done, and instead of bailing you out with loans, we should have just “left you alone”?”

You mean the loan that the UK turned profit on? It was a loan. It wasn’t charity.

And again – if you want Brexit go ahead a do it. But don’t drag us down with you. If the UK announced that they were leaving the EU, leaving the Single Market, leaving the Customs Union etc… but Northern Ireland would remain in all of them – then I would support that plan.

If there’s anything that demonstrates why the Irish Brexit negotiaters and planners were four steps ahead of their Brit counterparts it’s this:

April 2018. Irish launch an enormous ‘Brexit busting’ ferry which will allow hundreds of thousands of additional tonnes of freight go to and from the Continent each year, bypassing Britain and the border controls and paperwork that may be inevitable if a hard Brexit becomes a reality:

I read VERY carefully the question on the ballot paper. I KNEW what I was voting for. Leaving the EU, the Single Market, the Customs Union and the ECJ. I thought that parliament might have chosen the Norway Option, which is what I would have prefered as a stage on the path to Third Country Status, but it wasn’t to be. We are were we are because Remainers lied and continue to do so.

—

That Brussels bus is coming, and poor old Ireland, will be thrown u dear it.

Brussels have played their vassal state of Ireland like a fiddle.

Pete

Look at this:

I really do not need to go into details as to what this will all mean to the RoI but, it has asked that should the UK go all FULL BREXIT it will need a bailout. I do not expect that bailout to come without strings attached. One of them that they do not obstruct EVER CLOSER UNION which the Irish government signed when it joined the then EEC.

—

Seamus

Whatever way you want to spin it, Remain is the minority view in the Shires. The politicians exist to represent the people and air our grievances. That job is being passed to Brussels without our consent.

“The politicians exist to represent the people and air our grievances. That job is being passed to Brussels without our consent.”

It ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents.

Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

“I really do not need to go into details as to what this will all mean to the RoI but, it has asked that should the UK go all FULL BREXIT it will need a bailout. I do not expect that bailout to come without strings attached. One of them that they do not obstruct EVER CLOSER UNION which the Irish government signed when it joined the then EEC.”

From your link … the EU Commission seeks to end unanimity for tax changes. Any change to the unanimity needed for tax would require unanimity. Meaning Ireland would have to agree to any changes.

The ending of unanimity in any area of tax policy would itself require agreement from all countries and this is seen as most unlikely in advance of next May’s European Parliament elections and the subsequent end of the current commission’s mandate next November

And Dublin won’t agree to them. That is how this works. The EU proposes treaty changes. They must be approved by the member states. On approval by the member states they must be ratified by the member states.

So even the fast track procedure as described in Article 48 would be subject to ratification by the member states. If one withholds ratification then it doesn’t pass.

Additionally Article 48 is specific. No new treaty change that can increase the powers of the EU can be fast tracked under Article 48.

The Republic of Ireland is a small, and frankly insignificant country, in the EU scheme of things. A deal will be done. Dublin will be bought off. But there’s no way that it will block what the EU wants.

“You really think that the intricacies of European decision making are known or important to these obstinate anti EU ignormamouses Seamus?”

I don’t expect them to, not least because the EU can be complicated. But when they are factually incorrect – and have those facts pointed out to them – you’d expect them to stop spouting the same auld bollocks time after time.

Just looked a little deeper. Of the €85 billion – €17.5 billion was provided directly by the Republic of Ireland. The remaining €67.5 billion was divided equally three ways – €22.5 billion from the EU, €22.5 billion from the Eurozone, and €22.5 billion from the IMF.

So why is an Irishman, born and bred in Ireland, living somewhere else not an Irishman?

Because his Aberdonian master said it before and we already know how Harri loves to emulate Pete and Allan as he’s incapable of originality or independent though past soundbites ‘clever quips’ and links about something or something.

Because his Aberdonian master said it before and we already know how Harri loves to emulate Pete and Allan as he’s incapable of originality or independent though past soundbites ‘clever quips’ and links about something or something

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yawn.

Now, back hopefully to a real conversation with a real Irishman.

Not some plastic paddy who lives in Pamplona allegedly… Or somewhere or other.

I know there will never be an EU Army, because some bloke in Spain and Nick Clegg told me so, but just in case, does Ireland, as military pointless and neutral as it is, have any say in the proceedings?

In an extraordinary article for leading German newspaper Handelsblatt entitled “Europe is forming an army”, Germany’s defence minister Ursula von der Leyen has hammered another nail in the Remain referendum lie that the idea of an EU army is a “dangerous fantasy”. It’s a dangerous reality…

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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